My husband and I own a 3-bedroom, 2 bathroom home in Palmetto, Florida that we use exclusively to generate income as a short-term rental aka we list it on Airbnb and VRBO and people we don't know rent it, anywhere from 3 days to 60 days.
This was our first experience with buying and setting up a short-term rental, but in general, our guiding philosophies were:
Creating spaces that were comfortable and stylish and felt like they would be found in a comparably priced hotel (in our case, around $250-275/night)
Finding pieces that would be durable, but easy to replace in the event they broke or were destroyed
In this post, I'm sharing how we set up our master bedroom.
The master bedroom in our place is fairly large, so we could comfortably fit a king size bed. We put four king size pillows on the bed, along with some decorative throw pillows (faux leather | yellow). A note on the mattress we bought: This Wayfair mattress is very affordable and quite comfortable for a wide-range of sleepers, which is just what you want to look for when buying for a short-term rental. We flanked the bed with matching end tables with lamps. And we put a seagrass area rug under the bed. In retrospect, I would have chosen a more cozy rug, because seagrass doesn't feel great under bare feet, but it looks nice.
Short-term rental bed buying pro tips:
If you can fit a king size bed in the master bedroom, get a king size bed. Guests expect it.
Provide at least four bed pillows (not including throw pillows).
Get all white sheets so you can bleach them.
Buy at least 3 sets of sheets per bed.
Buy at least 2 comforter sets per bed.
Don't forget what you cannot see - waterproof mattress protectors and pillow protectors.
Leave a throw blanket at your own risk. If you're setting up a short-term rental in a wintery locale, it might make sense to have throw blankets around, but in Florida, it's not necessary and it only leads to more laundry (which means higher cleaning costs).
For the rest of the furniture in the master bedroom, we bought second-hand or restored furniture from Facebook Marketplace and a local consignment shop. You don't always find a desk in a master bedroom, but we added one (along with a desk lamp) because we had the space and wanted to appeal to work-from-home travelers to encourage them to stay longer.
In general, it's much cheaper to buy a used or restored dresser, rather than a brand-new one. Used dressers are already assembled, and often you can find solid wood pieces that will hold up to guest wear and tear.
We had a lot of empty wall space in the room, so we bought coastal-themed wall art (beach scene | shells | beach landscape), both brand-new and from a consignment shop.
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